Archive for February, 2009
Hegel makes some interesting comments, distinctions and criticisms with respect to the respective domains of history and philosophy in the Introduction to the Philosophy of Right:
s3. Montesquieu proclaimed the true historical view, the genuinely philosophical position, namely that legislation both in general and in its particular provisions is to be treated not as something isolated [...]
My reasons for looking at historicism should emerge clearly over the coming posts. Derrida understands historicism as an unacceptable relativism, and a critique of this is an implicit first step in his thinking. As Peter Dews notes:
Given the frequency of relativistic appropriations of Derrida, particularly in the English speaking world, it is important for an [...]
Forty years ago there were all sorts of debates about historicism. They’ve largely disappeared, or are met with stifled yawns. But, I think, it is largely an unacknowledged problem within historiography.
Frederick Beiser (Hegel 2005, p.29-30) gives a brief schematic of historicism, which is a useful place to start, as follows:
Although the term ‘historicism’ has acquired [...]
I liked this:
During a meeting of Cornell’s literature department to decide the fate of Nabokov’s tenure, one of the professors objected by saying that allowing a writer to be a part of a literature department is not unlike letting an elephant to be a zookeeper. This is to prove that established professors could still have [...]
Time for a little systematic reading. Derrida’s 1962 Introduction to the Origin of Geometry is an extremely important book for understanding the development of Derrida’s work, and the unity of his overall oeuvre. From memory (don’t have the book in front of me), he describes it in Positions as the first half to Speech and [...]
Well, after quite a break, it’s back to blogging about my thesis again. Will hopefully be putting up quite a bit of material, following completing a chapter draft and having it put through the excoriating process of supervisory criticism.
